


You're Not Dead Yet

by likeporcelain



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Marriage, North, Wedding, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:45:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeporcelain/pseuds/likeporcelain
Summary: Daenerys sees Jon struggle to reconcile getting married when the Great War looms ahead.





	You're Not Dead Yet

Daenerys stepped down deeper into the barely-lit crypt where the wind stopped blowing and snow did not fall. Even so, the air was cold and damp and she had to pull the furs tighter around her shoulders as not to shiver.

"How long have you been down here?" she asked, watching the smoke of her breath dance in front of her before disappearing with the echo of her voice.

She watched her stoic Jon Snow for any sign of movement but he remained still, standing in front of a tall ominous statue of a quite lovely Lady.

"I don't know. Since dawn I suppose," he eventually muttered.

He hadn't spoken to his Queen in any real way since finding out about his true parentage. It wasn't all his fault, though. Daenerys had been shaken by the news as well and spent a great deal of time afterward in deep contemplation alone in her chambers. She thought about her journey. All those disheartening years spent following her brother around, trying to avoid his sinister gaze at all costs. Those uncertain days traveling with the Khal as his Khaleesi only to watch him be murdered by a woman she never should have trusted. The night her child was stripped from her body before she could lay eyes upon his face. She thought of the night her dragons were born, and the first time someone tried to take them from her. . . She thought of the House of the Undying.

"I've wanted to speak with you, but it felt strange to have you summoned."

"You're the Queen," Jon said, to which Dany could not help herself from singling out the 'the' - was she simply the Queen now, not his Queen? "You may summon me whenever you please."

She stepped beside him, watching his dark eyes as they carved holes into the stone face before him. Her heart warmed, realizing why Jon had not left his place for hours. All this time, not knowing if his mother was alive or dead, not knowing where she was from or what her name was - and she was right there in Winterfell, beneath his feat the entire time.

"I heard she was the most beautiful woman in Westeros," she said wistfully.

"Look," Jon began, finally tearing his eyes from his mother's stone figure "you have to know, it doesn't matter to me what Bran says about who my parents are, or any of it. It does not change who I am. I do not wish to sit on the Iron Throne. I pledged myself to you as our Queen. I won't go back on that."

Daenerys smiled at him, despite the welling in her eyes. "Not long after my dragons were born, I found myself a guest in a land called Qarth. At least, I thought I was a guest. They took my dragons hostage inside a tower with no doors and no windows. Somehow I entered this tower, and as I searched for my children, I saw these. . . visions."

"Visions?" Jon's eyes were even darker now, trapped within a shadow from the torch lighting.

"I didn't realize until now, but I was seeing things that would occur in the future. I saw myself going beyond the wall in the dense snow. I could feel the cold on my skin and the wind on my face."

"What did you see?"

"My husband," she whispered, "and my son. I wanted to stay with them so badly, but I couldn't. I had to leave them."

"I'm sorry."

"For a long while, I thought they had appeared to me as a form of torture. To look upon the life I could have had if things had been a little different, if I hadn't been so foolish. But, that wasn't what it was." Daenerys stepped closer to Lord Snow, still too afraid to reach a hand out and feel his warmth. "I did go beyond the wall, and I did leave a child behind. . . and the man I loved."

Jon's shoulders rose and fell, eyes drifting away from her. It was moments such as these where he showed her just how delicate he could be, so unaccustomed to affection that it could bring about sadness rather than joy.

"But that was not all I saw. I stood in the Red Keep," Dany continued. "A place I had never set foot in in all my life, and before me was the Iron Throne, which my eyes had never seen before, and it was snowing. Snow falling from huge gaps in the ceiling, falling all over the throne. Perhaps it just meant that Winter would fall on King's Landing, but perhaps it means something more as well – that Jon Snow was meant to sit on the Iron Throne."

Jon shook his head, stepping away.

"That's not what I want."

"What do you want, Jon Snow?"

It was a few moments before he answered. "To kill the Night King."

Daenerys stepped closer to him. "Is that all you want?"

He wouldn't meet her eye. Staring off at a flickering shadow on the wall, he uttered "It has to be."

The young Queen couldn't take it anymore. She uncovered her arm from beneath her cloak and reached her fingers out to touch Jon's whiskered cheek. Finally, his eye lids fluttered and he was looking straight at her.

"You know what it's like," he began, voice low and hushed "to watch someone you love die. It's the most terrible thing in the world." Dany's hand slid away from the Northerner as she listened to his warning. "I will probably die in this war. And I cannot promise that I will be able to come back again. Do you understand?"

She could hardly see her eyes were so full of tears, cascading down her face with every blink. Jon's gloved hands rested on her cheeks and wiped them away with his thumbs.

"Don't cry, Dany. Everybody dies. Death always wins."

"You're not like everybody else," she repeated the Lord's words back to him, smiling with her chapped lips. "And you're not dead yet."

Their mouths joined, carefree and longingly they kissed away each others' worries and fears, if only for that one moment. She kept him against her for as long as she could, holding her breath, afraid that if their kiss broke, so would she. But, eventually, Jon pulled away from her. 

“Winter is here,” he whispered against her lips. “Everything else has to wait.”

*

A soft knock on the chamber door interrupted Queen Daenerys from brushing out her hair for the night. Missandei used to perform such tasks for her but lately Dany had preferred solitude late at night. On her ship coming to Winterfell, a soft knock after sundown meant Jon Snow was visiting. Oh how she missed those nights.

The Queen opened the door, seeing the tall, fire haired sister of her beloved Jon standing between the two Unsullied soldiers charged with guarding her chamber.

“Your Grace,” Sansa greeted with a short curtsy. A true Lady, Daenerys thought.

“Lady Stark, what a surprise. Please come in.”

Daenerys closed the door behind them and ushered Sansa to a seat close to the fire.

“My apologies for visiting so late, but I wanted to give you something.”

It was then that Daenerys realized Sansa had quite a hefty package in her arms. When the Queen sat down across from her, Sansa passed the package from her lap to Dany's.

“A gift?” Daenerys asked with a smile. It pleased her to think that one of Jon's siblings could like her. The only family member she ever knew was Viserys, and he was a cruel, small man. Even though she shared no blood with the Starks, Jon was a Stark, and he shared her blood. Of course, they had not told anyone of the things revealed to them by Bran and Sam shortly after their arrival at Winterfell. Only they knew, and a small handful of their advisers: Ser Davos and Ser Jorah, Lord Tyrion and Missadei.

She unfolded the wrapping, revealing a heavy cloak, black as night but lined over the shoulders with a thick white fur pelt reminiscent of Ghost's coat.

“It’s magnificent. You made this for me?”

“Well, I began to make it for myself, but I have enough things and I thought you may need a proper Northern cloak.” Sansa smiled as the Queen stood and tried on her handiwork. “I hope it's not too long.”

“It’s perfect. How do I look?” Daenerys did a turn.

“Like a Northern Lady,” Sansa answered. “You are going to marry my brother after all, right Your Grace?”

Daenerys removed the cloak and draped it across the chair before resuming her seat.

“I don’t know, honestly.”

“Why not?” the younger woman asked, quite perplexed by the Queens answer. “I see the way he looks at you, and the way you look at him back. And politically – well, you would have a much simpler time convincing the North to fight for you against Cersei Lannister if they knew once it was over, they would have a Northerner ruling over the Seven Kingdoms.”

“He’s afraid,” Dany explain, hushed. “He thinks he is going to die in the war, and he very well might.”

“Jon likes to get himself killed.” Sansa meant it in a lighthearted sense, but the Queen took it another way, the scar on Jon's chest forever etched in her mind, reminding her that the next time his heart is pierced, there may be no un-piercing it.

“He doesn’t want me to watch another husband die.”

Sansa leaned forward. “Did you love your husband?”

Dany smiled fondly. “Not at first, but eventually I did. And although the prospect of marrying again was always glaringly inevitable, I never believed I could truly love another man. I never thought that. . . See, your brother. . .” The Queen's smile turned into a toothy grin, remembering the first time she met Jon Snow in Dragonstone. She had put on her usual performance, not wanting the so-called King in the North to think she was anything less than the most powerful woman in the world, but even as Missandei announced her titles, Daenerys could tell that Jon Snow was no threat to her, but quite the opposite. “I did love my husband, but it's different with Jon. It feels as though I was meant to find him.” The Queen felt like a silly girl saying the words, but what other explanation could there be? She was supposed to be the last Targaryen, and while it sounds poetic, it was incredibly lonely, and now. . . she was no longer the last Targaryen. “And when I did find him. . . He's not like everybody else, your brother. There was just no stopping it. I couldn’t stop it.”

“You love him.”

It was a statement, not a question. A fact.

“Yes,” Dany admitted. “I love him.”

Sansa stood and placed a warm hand on Dany's shoulder. “If you want to marry him, then you should marry him now. It may be your last chance. Winter is here.”

The Queen looked up at the Lady, searching her blue eyes.

Before Sansa left she looked over her shoulder and said “Don’t worry. Lord Tyrion should be speaking with Jon now.”

*

That night, long past the point at which she should have fallen asleep, Daenerys heard faint discourse outside her chamber door. There were a number of possible reasons for it, but somehow Dany knew precisely who was trying to gain her company. Even with the fire maintained, the air was colder than she could ever grow accustomed to. She wrapped herself in the furs from her bed before padding to the door and opening it.

Sansa had told her not to worry, and she worried still, but there Jon stood outside her door, his eyes as dark as ever but void of the fear and uncertainty they exuded since Bran's disclosing of who Jon's true parents were. He was calm and sure with a glow about him. Dany wondered if maybe he'd had some wine with her Hand during their talk. 

The King in the North joined her bed that night, but they did not make love, both too exhausted after shedding so much doubt. 

“I love you, Dany,” he murmured sleepily into her ear, his strong arms wrapped securely around her frame, their legs intertwined deep underneath the bed covers.

“What did Tyrion tell you?” she asked.

His lips stretched into a lazy smile, trying to keep his eyes open. “To stop being such a coward.”

“You're not a coward,” Dany said and pressed her lips to his.

He kissed her back. “Sometimes, I am. I wanted to marry you on that ship, after the first night we spent together.”

Daenerys tucked her head under her lover's chin, pressing her cheek to his chest. 

“We can have the wedding first thing tomorrow,” Jon said as Dany began to drift to sleep. “I don't want another day to pass where I cannot call myself your husband.”

*

The wedding would be a bone chilling affair, but Dany's heart would remain warm. It was so very Jon Snow to want to get married outdoors in the middle of Winter. She had been told that the Old Gods ceremony was traditionally performed at night, but it was not safe to be out at night. The Night King was marching South, the war was coming for them, but they were ready. Daenerys only hoped that she wouldn't hear the horns blowing until after she and Jon were wed.

The ceremony, Daenerys had learned, was quite simple. However, there were still a few intricacies that they would have to be creative about. First, the ceremony was supposed to be officiated by the head of the husband-to-be's family, usually meaning a father, but with Jon's father – both of his fathers – being dead and his uncle presumed dead, the task would have to fall to Lady Sansa. 

Another embellishment that had to be made, was who would present Daenerys at the ceremony. . .

She dressed in a long white gown, lacking sleeves or proper lining for the North, but the Queen had decided to wear the cloak Sansa had gifted her, now the warmest piece of clothing she owned. She also wrapped her feet in thick boots appropriate for walking in heavy snow. Missandei was tying her hair in intricate braids behind her head when the chamber door creaked open. 

“You wished to see me, Your Grace?” said Ser Jorah, eyes beholding his Queen in all of her matrimonial glory. 

“Yes, um -” she turned to Missandei. “It looks perfect. Thank you. Will you leave us, please?”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Missandei gave a short bow before retreating. 

Daenerys stood from her seat and smiled up at he adviser. “My friend. . .”

“Everything is set, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, but I wish to ask a favor of you.”

Jorah gave a bow. “I live to serve you, Your Grace.”

“This is not something I will command of you.”

She took Jorah's hands into her own. “You have been by my side longer than anyone. I trust you with my life, Ser Jorah. When my brother died, when everyone I loved died, you were there, the closest thing to family I had left. I still do consider you to be my family. That is why, I would be honored if you would present me today at the wedding.” She gave his hands a soft squeeze. “However, I will understand if it is too much to ask.”

He sighed. “It is true that I have loved you for some time. Quite a long time, actually. But there has always been something more important to me than gaining your love in return. I want to see you on the Iron Throne, my Queen. If marrying Jon Snow will get you the Iron Throne, then -”

“That is not why I want to marry him.”

“No, I suppose it's not.” He smiled despite himself. “But you must not let your enemies know that, Your Grace. Love can be a dangerous thing in Westeros. Even more dangerous in times of war. Promise me that you will not sacrifice yourself to try to save him. Without you, all of this will have been for nothing.”

She raised one of his hands and pressed a light kiss to his knuckle. “It will not have been for nothing, no matter what happens.”

*

The snowfall had settled by the time the ceremony began. The Godswood was decorated with torches leading to the weirwood tree and all of hers and Jon's love ones and trusted friends stood in their Winter wear. Drogon and Rhaegal circled hundreds of feet above and Ghost sat obediently beside his master's siblings, Arya and Bran.

When Daenerys came out, escorted by Jorah Mormont, all eyes were on her, but her eyes were on Jon, standing at the heart of the tree in his cloak and furs. She saw the smile form on his lips and she thought she saw a glint of moisture under his eyes. The Queen blinked away her own tears as she stepped ever closer to her betrothed. 

“Who comes before the Old Gods this night?” recited the voice of Sansa Stark.

“Queen Daenerys, of the House Targaryen, comes here to be wed,” Jorah began. “A woman grown, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessing of the Gods. Who comes to claim her?" 

Daenerys barely registered these words. She was too busy trying to hear Jon's thoughts. Everyone else faded into the background where all she could see was Jon. All other sounds became part of the breeze where all she could hear was his breath. He looked upon her as if she were the most beautiful thing he had seen in all his life, and she looked upon him as if he were the only thing she had ever desired. Only the voice of her beloved could wake her from her reverie. 

“Jon Snow, of the House Stark,” he spoke. “Who gives her?”

“Jorah, of the House Mormont, who is. . .” Jorah paused. “Who is a friend.”

Sansa then asked “Queen Daenerys, do you take this man?” 

“I do. I take this man,” she said quickly, parting from her escort and taking the hands of her love, Jon Snow. 

He pulled her close, their mouths longed to join, but the proceedings were not quite over. Daenerys followed Jon's movements, kneeling down into the snow before the weirwood. All was silent for minute. She knew this time was meant for prayer, but she had never prayed to the Old Gods before. She was not sure they would listen to a Southerner. She only asked them to watch over her husband when she couldn't, to keep him safe, and to bring him back to her after each battle. 

They stood and Daenerys wanted to climb into Jon's arms and have him carry her all the way back to his bed chamber, but it still wasn't time. Jon reached his hands under his cloak and drew out two pins made of fine steel; they were both of a direwolf, the Stark sigil. He stepped forward and pinned each one to the breast of her cloak, one on either side of the leather clasps holding the thick material closed, both facing inward. It was the same design that adorned all of Jon's armor and official wear. 

“Now, you are of House Targaryen and House Stark,” he told her in a hushed voice. These were not ceremonial words. These words were just for her. 

Dany beamed. She had never felt like anything other than a Targaryen. Even when she was married to the Khal, part of her knew that was not who she was meant to be. Maybe it was all the great things she had heard about the late Eddard Stark that made her so infatuated with the Stark title. Maybe it was how lovely the Stark children were. Maybe it was that years ago her eldest brother fell madly in love with a beautiful wolf-girl named Lyanna Stark which brought about one of the bloodiest wars in history. How fitting that the love between another Targaryen and Stark could bring an end to another war.

“As you are now of House Stark and House Targaryen,” she whispered back. 

There was no feast after the ceremony. In Winter, rations were strict and nothing could be wasted, even to celebrate the union of a King and Queen. That did not mean, however, that there would be no celebration for the two newlyweds. 

While their trusted advisers attended to the finishing touches of their battle strategy, Dany and Jon spent some alone time in his bed chamber, making love like it was their day on this world.

They would write songs about Jon Snow and Daenerys Stormborn, volumes of texts about their journeys. Maesters throughout the country would study their lives, their glories, their tragedies, and their love for each other long after their deaths. 

That day, however, none of that mattered. And should the horns blow three times come night fall, they would be ready – ready to fight, to kill, to die.


End file.
